Stories and children

A flower whose roots find rich sustenance and contact with the Earth’s lifeblood, prospers; there is no difference for children. Newborn babes may have their own personality, their own energy, but primarily they are an open page waiting for their family to write the outline of their story upon it; growing up is the child’s chance to fill in the blank spots.

It is our responsibility to write the strongest, most powerful, gentle, loving outline we can; this is our children’s roadmap to life – no small task but a joy at every step.

We are their role models, we are what they aspire to be. What we do, say, read, think, believe is where they will direct their lives.

Stories, tales, legends, poetry and song are central to this journey; since time immemorial children have learned so much from these things. From the earliest times every parent knew the stories that taught their children about the world around them and how they should interact within it. Later, as the world grew larger, travelling Story Tellers and Bards expanded this role to bring stories of far off wonders and ways.

Today, we have allowed this role to be taken over by Big Business and it has not only become a thing which all too often teaches our children values and beliefs that we would prefer them not to have, it has become a commodity to buy and sell. Our children’s future values and beliefs are now in the control of people whose only interest is in how much money they can make and how quickly they can make it.

We need to reclaim “Story Rights” over our children; mostly today the stories come to them through a screen. Children are forgetting how to read, forgetting how to imagine, forgetting how to play, but worst of all is the content of the stories that spew out of that screen and into our children’s minds. This is why we, as responsible adults need to write, tell our children stories, make up poems with them, spend the time to take back control of their roadmap to life.

We are their Guardians, the definition of Guardian is “a defender, protector, or keeper” that is our role and for thousands of years a significant part of that journey has been through the stories, songs and poems we provided them with.

Let’s give them the stories they deserve so that they can develop into the amazingly, simple, complex people they deserve to be!